A Prison of My Own Design
by Rescind
Summary: What is one to do when their fears color the world around them? What if that 'color' is not so metaphorical? Following a traumatic incident at school, Taylor Hebert gains an immense power: the ability to warp and change the very fabric of the world around her. Unfortunately, her ability also comes with some unpleasant and unintentional side effects.
1. 1-1

A Prison of My Own Design

1.1

Consciousness came slowly. With a sluggishness I'd only felt once before when I was sick in bed with a terrible fever, I struggled to throw off the last vestiges of sleep. Attempting to roll onto my side to catch a glimpse of the red glow of my alarm clock, my head lolled around ineffectively as though I were dangling from the side of the bed. Blearily, I pealed my eyes open to get my bearings.

I was greeted by indistinct black blurs. Between my poor eyesight and the apparent lack of any form of illumination, the darkness that greeted me was nearly identical to the sight of the back of my eyelids. I thought I could make out a sort of undulating movement, but the longer I stared the more certain I was that it was a trick of the mind.

Something brushed against my fingers.

Reflexively, my arm flinched, an instinctual response to protect my digits, but the pull met a strange resistance. My head lolled around again, attempting to catch a glimpse of my arms and torso. I must have been thrashing and wrapped myself up in my blankets during the night as even my legs seemed to be held in place by a soft semi-yielding force. I shifted my weight and attempted to work my limbs free, however the blankets shifted with me, yielding just enough to prevent me from building leverage to pull myself out, but not enough to allow me to move.

Something long, thin, and soft of texture shifted up from my shoulder, slithering up over my jaw bone and across the top of my nose.

Adrenaline flooded my system, violently burning away the sleep that clouded my mind and I screamed. My body was covered in a writhing shifting mass. I began to thrash in panic as I felt it coiling more tightly around my limbs, the weight pressing down on my torso as though in an attempt to smother me. There wasn't enough force to prevent me from breathing and the coils didn't hurt, but there was enough pressure to make me distinctly uncomfortable and the claustrophobia of being pinned in the dark caused panic to supersede rational thought.

Warm tears streamed down my face and I screamed again as loud as I could manage under the uncomfortable pressure. I tried to thrash more violently in an attempt to make space to free myself, but the coils only wound more tightly. Desperately, I stretched my right arm away from me trying to find something, anything, to grab onto and give myself an extra boost of leverage. My hand waved around with the small amount of leeway it had and found nothing.

As my body was wracked with panicked sobs I could feel myself giving up. I was trapped, bound by what must have been some eldritch terror and unable to free myself. My body was weak, possessed by an exhaustion that saturated me to my very bones. There was no escape from this prison and I could do nothing but deliver my plea into the darkness.

"Please... help me..."

I recoiled as my prayer was seemingly answered.

With a loud slam, a curtain of light fell over me. It seemed to pulse and shift as the tendrils of the something coiled around my head, but its position remained unchanged, an anchor to focus on in the consuming darkness.

"Taylor!" A mature feminine voice called out to me. It was punctuated by the quick staccato wrap of heeled shoes on a hard floor. The curtain of light was disturbed by what appeared to be a woman's legs approaching. They seemed to give off an ethereal and strangely comforting glow that illuminated the area around her. It revealed a floor covered in writhing leafy black tendrils: vines, I belatedly realized. As the woman continued her brisk approach, I watched with dawning hope as where the glow she radiated fell, the vines receded back into the surrounding darkness. In four beats of my frantic heart, the woman reached me and I felt a hand wrap around my own.

"Taylor? Taylor can you hear me? Can you understand me? Remember the breathing exercises you were taught. This is your power at work operating under the direction of your subconscious fears. Your power can't hurt you. You are in control. Breathe slowly, focus, and try to relax."

I forced myself to focus on the voice, clinging desperately to the words and following the instructions. Shakily, I sucked in a deep breath and tried to hold it. I failed and coughed out, panting manically. Sucking in another deep breath through my nose, I forced myself to hold onto it. In response, my chest screamed in protest and my muscles spasmed as they continued their attempt to suck in more air. When it became too much to hold onto I coughed out and panted a few more times before I steeled myself to suck in and hold onto another breath.

"Good. That's good Taylor. Deep breath in, hold onto it, and let it out slowly. You're doing well. Remember, **you're** in control here. Nothing's going to hurt you. In this space you're the master. This is **your** world. If you will these vines away, they will disappear."

A shining hand filled my vision and it slowly forced its way in through my prison, the vines receding from its glow, before it came to rest on the back of my head to support my neck. Gradually my breathing began to slow as I focused the entirety of my attention on the calm and confident voice speaking to me.

"You don't need to be afraid. Don't allow these vines to restrain you. They should be supporting you, uplifting you, forming a hammock for you to rest on. You are the master here. They obey your will and your will alone. Calm yourself, and this world will be calm."

Clamping my eyes shut, I focused on the breathing exercise I'd been taught to stave off hyperventilation. Taking a deep breath, I held it to a slow count of five before breathing out and repeating. Gradually, my heart rate began to decrease and the numbness that had been spreading through my limbs started to recede. With it, the vines that wrapped around me gradually loosened. I focused my attention on the space around me and as though revealed by a lifting fog, a picture began to form in my mind.

A rectangular area, six yards long, three wide, and three tall traced itself out for me. I could picture every corner, every surface, and every curve in the space as well as the alterations made to them. The wall dividing my sleeping area from the small attached bathroom had become twisted. It's surface stretched and deformed, becoming long black vines that snaked their way around the room. The ceramic tile of the floor had been altered to an uneven cobblestone like texture, and the concrete walls became cracked and deteriorated as though they'd faced hundreds of years of erosion. Stalactites hung from the ceiling, dripping a dark liquid that smelled sickeningly of blood.

Still trembling from the combination of adrenaline and lingering panic, I focused on the vines. I imagined myself reaching out with imaginary hands through the space to take hold of them. Meticulously, I pulled and prodded like I was working on a particularly troublesome knot. A sliding sensation over my pajamas alerted me to the unraveling movement of the vines even as I could feel the specific positions of each one in my mind. They all moved as one, untangling from me in a continual sinuous motion as they layered together in a latticework beneath my back.

The hand supporting the back of my head gently lowered me down to rest on the newly formed cushion of vines. The one holding my own hand released as well and after a moment I heard a rustling sound coming from behind me. I continued to regulate my breathing and focused on the calming sound of the movement nearby. A short time later, I felt two rigid objects slide along the sides of my head behind my ears and two soft pads came to rest on the bridge of my nose; my glasses I realized, and opened my eyes.

I was greeted by a warm smile that gently crinkled the features of an Asian woman with short black hair. Her skin seemed to emit a pale white glow that I could feel on my own like the warmth of the sun. It had a calming effect on me and quickly my tense muscles relaxed.

"Good morning Taylor." She began in a soothing tone. "I'm Mrs. Yamada, one of the psychiatrists here at the Asylum." She turned away and made a show of looking around the transformed room. "I would turn on the lights so you could have a proper look at me, but they don't seem to be working at the moment." I tried to shake my head, but it simply rolled limply side to side. My muscles felt like limp noodles.

"S'all right... can see you... glowing..." My tongue felt thick and heavy, and I couldn't seem to properly voice what I wanted to say. She turned back to face me and gave me a curious look.

"Glowing? I am?" I tried to nod and my eyelids closed feeling heavy. After a brief struggle, I managed to open them again and my eyes refocused.

"Glow's... laxing... vines... didn't like it." Mrs. Yamada's brows creased together and she turned down to study the vines still writhing slowly across the floor. She took a careful step forwards and once again the vines receded from the soft glow thrown off by her leg.

"Is that what happened?" She asked, turning back to face me. "The vines don't like being in my glow? Does anyone else glow too?" She turned and gestured towards the door. "Do you remember Mr. O'Brien? Does he glow?" A large man was standing there holding onto a wheelchair that sat in front of him. His face was concealed by an enormous black gas mask that seemed to leak a purple miasma and his body was covered with asymmetrical bits of dark grey armor plating. The plates occasionally shifted, two drawing together to close a gap between them only to reveal new gaps where they once were.

My head rolled from side to side again. "No glow... gas mask... armor... not enough..." Mrs. Yamada frowned as she turned between me and the man with the wheelchair. After a moment, her smile returned and she approached my bed again.

"I wanted to talk with you about how you're adjusting to your stay here, but since you've just woken up why don't we take a walk to the cafeteria to get some breakfast. Does that sound like a good idea?" I bobbed my head in a limp nod and Mrs. Yamada gestured to the man with the wheelchair.

He pushed into the room, masked face turning from side to side to give the space a wary look, and turned the wheelchair to rest against the side of my bed, locking the wheels. Mrs. Yamada reached out to slide a hand under one of my shoulders and Mr. O'Brien attempted to do the same with the other one. As he drew close, the vines beneath me seemed to react poorly, surging up and lashing out in an attempt to wrap around his hand. He yelped in surprise and jerked his arm back, stumbling away towards the door.

"Are you alright Taylor?" Mrs. Yamada prompted me with a concerned look. "Do you not feel comfortable with Mr. O'Brien touching you?" She gave me a moment to process the question before I slowly shook my head side to side again.

"Not me... vines..." She gave me a placating smile and shifted herself to stand fully behind my head, hooking her elbows beneath my shoulders and wrapping her forearms securely around my torso. With a gentle heft, she lifted my back from the vines covering my bed and slid my rear end into the waiting wheelchair. After letting me lean back into the padded surface, she made her way back around the chair and hooked an arm under my legs, pivoting me around to rest properly and sliding my legs into the cushioned supports on the leg rests. Moving back behind me, she pulled two straps over my shoulders and down across my torso in an X before fastening them somewhere around my waist and pulling them snug.

"There we go. Now, let's go see what there is for breakfast. I've always liked the blueberry muffins here. They've..." As the wheel locks were released and the chair started to move, my head rolled around to hang forwards limply. In my mindscape I could feel the area defined by my room pull away from me, and like a fumbled item falling from my hands, my grasp on awareness faltered.

For an indeterminate length of time, I felt as though I was floating through an inky sea. I was distantly aware of the faint sensations of my body jostling slightly, and of muted sounds trying to make their way to me, but I was unable to piece together what they meant. Occasionally, flashes would illuminate the inky darkness around me and images of varying scenes would resolve themselves: cast iron fences topped with black roses penning me in, smooth white walls punctuated by tall thin towers, greasy black swamps filled with oil instead of water, fields of obsidian spikes with razor sharp edges and glassy sheens. The images were as fantastic in their incredibility as they were terrifyingly foreboding. These were places that could only exist in the realm of fantasy and dream, and yet to me they felt as though they were within my grasp, merely a few paces away, waiting for me to come and explore their impossible expanses.

A flash of light blinded me and I flinched back, closing my eyes. After a moment, I opened them and tried to blink away spots that weren't there. With a small measure of embarrassment, I realized I was staring at a white surface covered with black spots. I tried to shake off a sense of lingering confusion and pulled my head up to get my bearings. I was in a small cafeteria, sitting in a wheelchair that was pushed up to a round table. A muffin sat on a napkin in front of me, next to two Styrofoam cups, one filled with water and the other filled with a dark steaming liquid that smelled like tea.

Across from me an Asian woman with short black hair sat tearing pieces off of another muffin to pop into her mouth and an open thermos steaming next to it. She seemed familiar to me and I struggled with the feeling that her name was on the tip of my tongue but remained just out of reach. I raised my hands and pushed up my glasses to rub my eyes in an attempt to clear away the confusion. The woman sitting across from me caught the movement and looked up from her muffin, giving me a friendly smile.

"Good morning Taylor. My name is Jessica Yamada and I'm a psychiatrist working here at the Parahuman Asylum. You look like you're a bit more lucid now so why don't you get something in your stomach and we can talk a bit about how you've been adjusting. I picked out a banana muffin for you, but if you'd rather have something else we can go back up and take another look."

I blinked and studied the surface of the table in front of me as I processed her words. Even as I stared, the black and white pattern seemed to swirl together, forming intersecting squares of various sizes. I jerked back and felt something soft press down on my shoulders keeping me in my seat. I looked down and realized I was strapped into a wheelchair before looking up to give Mrs. Yamada a bewildered look. She was studying the changing pattern on the surface of the table with a critical look before she turned her attention back to me and gave me a comforting smile.

"Ah..." My attempt to speak was cut short as I realized my throat felt uncomfortably dry. I reached out with a trembling hand and took hold of the cup of water and slowly brought it to my lips. After a few big gulps, I set it down and tried again. "Ah, good morning. I'm..." I trailed off again as my gaze was pulled back down to the table surface. In a small circle around me, the table was slowly but visibly deforming. It created a miniature scene, like a hobby model of a strange fantasy maze made of smooth white walls and black floors. My eyes flicked back up to find Mrs. Yamada still calmly studying my expression. I clasped my hands together in an attempt to stop the shaking and gulped.

"I don't think I'm doing so well."


	2. 1-2

1.2

Blinking, I tried to clear away the haze that filled my vision through sheer force of will. The doctors were always telling me to 'be in control' as though that were a simple thing and not a battle I was already losing. Powers aside, I could hardly control my own body at times. They couldn't understand how frustrating it was to be fully aware but still unable to get a proper sentence out of your mouth.

 _I've been_ trying _to be in control but my body doesn't_ _ **fucking**_ _listen!_

As the room finally came back into focus, I looked around for Dr. Yamada, only to find both her and the cafeteria we'd been talking in nowhere in sight. Instead I was sitting in my wheelchair next to a couch with a bleached white cover over it, pushed up in front of a television playing some mindless cartoon.

"God- **damnit!** " I shouted to myself, leaning forwards as far as the restraints of the wheelchair would allow to cradle my face in my hands. Frustrated tears poured free as I clenched my teeth together, struggling not to outright sob. "Every time, every **fucking** time! I can't even remember the stupid conversation."

"Oh, you're awake?"

Caught off guard by the new voice I flinched and lifted my head from my hands to look for the source. On the couch to my left, a girl with straight dark brown hair was lounging in a carefree position, looking like she might as well have been in her own living room rather than a mental institution. She seemed older than me, closer in appearance to the graduating seniors of my high school than the general look of my fellow sophomores. She was lying on her side, angled towards the T.V. with one arm supporting her head. The other was thrown over the back of the couch, a position which pulled open the top of her lazily buttoned flannel hospital pajamas leaving one of her shoulders and the top of her bra visible for all to see.

She gave me a little two finger wave with the arm hanging over the couch.

"Morning. You were kinda out of it so I wasn't sure if-" She cut off as I flinched away from her, pulling off my glasses to burry my face into the crook of my elbow, hiding and wiping away the tears that still hadn't stopped. "Ah, sorry. Don't mind me, I'm just watchin cartoons."

It took me a few minutes to get myself under _control_.

When I'd finally stopped crying I pulled my arm away and slid my glasses back on, doing my best to pretend that I hadn't just been having another breakdown. The girl on the couch had sat up at some point and produced a tissue box from somewhere in the room. She held it out for me, doing her best to keep her eyes fixed on the television screen.

"Tissue." She said simply, making sure I noticed her offer. Ruefully I ripped a few out of the box and noisily blew my nose. Leaving the used ones in my lap, I grabbed a few more and did my best to scrub at the disgusting dark splotch of tears and mucus in the crook of my elbow. The girl left the box on the arm of the couch and stood up, slipping her feet into a pair of fluffy blue slippers and scuffing her way to a corner of the room to grab a small trashcan. She put it on the ground between me and the couch before flopping back into her seat. I mumbled out a quiet thanks and continued my efforts to clean up.

When I was a bit more presentable I tentatively decided to try to get my bearings.

"W- where am I?" I probed, needing to clear my throat a couple of times before my words were intelligible.

"Common room." She replied. "Functional people in the low-risk ward here are allowed to come use it during the day. At least, that's how it is for me. You're the first other patient I've seen here, it's been pretty boring."

"Oh." I replied lamely, not knowing what else to say. I guess I was a 'low-risk patient' so long as I didn't get to twist the world around me too much. I couldn't decide whether that was a good thing or a bad thing.

"So," The girl drawled, sinking down into the couch until she could lean her head onto the back of it. "What brings you to the loony bin?"

"I'm not crazy!" I snapped at her. She flinched a bit and held up her hands apologetically, turning to face me properly.

"Er, sorry. I didn't mean it like that. Just tryin to inject a little humor is all. Just not doin a great job of it." I hunched forward in my wheelchair, pulling against the restraints that kept me from falling out. I stewed like that for a little while before the awkward silence in the room became too much.

"I'm not crazy." I reiterated in a more reasonable tone. "Or at least I wasn't before..." I trailed off, not wanting to even think about what had happened at school, let alone tell some stranger about it. She offered some assistance and tactfully filled in the blank.

"You got your powers?" She asked to clarify. I looked away and nodded. "Yeah, I get that." She announced with a weary sigh. "Shit sucks."

I didn't know how to reply to that massive understatement so I just kept quiet.

"My name's Elizabeth by the way. Elizabeth Manton, just to get that out of the way since we'll probably be seeing each other a bunch. Elizabeth's kind of a mouthful so you can just call me Liz."

"Uh, Taylor Hebert." I replied, not really wanting to give my name but feeling pressured to do so since she'd already given hers.

"Cool, nice to meet'cha." She replied with a little salute. "Be nicer if it were under better circumstances but still nice regardless. It gets pretty boring here during the day when the docs don't have anything for you to do. As far as I'm concerned, any company is good company. Well, maybe not _any_ company, but you get what I mean."

"Hmm." I hummed neutrally, turning my attention to the television. Some colorful cartoon was on, the characters cheerily jabbering away at one another. After another brief pause, Elizabeth, or I guess 'Liz' spoke up again.

"I can change the channel if you'd rather watch somethin else. We don't get a whole lot of variety here though after the 'sanitation squad' or whatever finishes having their way with it."

"Uh, that's okay." I said, awkwardly noticing how she kept glancing over at me before her eyes returned to the screen, clearly interested in the program. "I'm not a big T.V. person and you were watching anyway."

"Alright, just let me know if you wanna change it though." She said, sounding mildly relieved in spite of her continued offer. There was another short pause before she spoke up again, glancing over at me and gesturing to the screen. "Cartoons are a great way to mindlessly kill some time, you know? You can just kinda zone out and enjoy them even if you haven't seen any of the others in the series." She needlessly defended herself.

"Yeah, I guess." I replied, feeling awkward for her. "Kind of like reading one entry in a book of short stories or something."

"Yes, exactly!" She replied with an enthusiastic grin. The whole exchange left me feeling somewhat empathetically embarrassed and I turned back to the T.V. trying to hide the faint blush I could feel heating my face.

We lapsed into another silence as Liz focused back on her cartoons. I tried to follow her example but ended up fidgeting self-consciously, unsure of how I should hold myself or behave. Meeting new people always sucked when you were as socially awkward as I was; the whole mental asylum thing only added another layer to the uncomfortableness.

My unease was reflected in my power as it actively struggled against me, pushing its way outward beyond my control like wet clay squeezing through my fingers. As the minutes ticked on and my sphere of influence continued to grow, I clenched my hands together, turning to Liz in an effort to distract myself. Maybe then I'd be able to avoid _twisting_ things.

"So uh, are you- um..."

"What, crazy?" She asked, eyes flicking over to me inquisitively.

"No! I didn't-" Even as I frantically started to defend myself, her lips turned up into a cheeky grin and she nonchalantly waved as though she could brush my worries away.

"It's fine. I mean everyone's gotta be a _little_ crazy right? Especially if you end up here." She held up a finger as though to stall any comments I might have. "Not that I'm like, some psycho or anything. Well, not **that** psycho, I- Shit, this is hard." She folded her arms across her chest, tilting her head back to stare at the ceiling as she seemed to puzzle over some dilemma.

"So it's like this: everybody's got their little neuroses right? Maybe the brain's a bit 'chemically imbalanced' or something." She actually mimed the air quotes as she was talking. "Most of the time nobody'll bother you about it. Just a little quirk as you go about your day. But! Suddenly you get superpowers that turn you into some unstoppable juggernaut, and then all of your little psycho-quirks turn into **really** fucking dangerous liabilities, right?"

"Uh, right." I agreed automatically.

"Anyway, I figure it's safer for **everyone** if I hang out here for a bit: give the white-coats and head-shrinks some time to cook up a magic cocktail of pills that'll work to smooth things over. I don't wanna hurt anybody, so- Well, yeah." She trailed off, her sociable demeanor fading into a sort of melancholy. "I don't wanna hurt anybody."

As she sat there, staring off at nothing and thinking what were probably unpleasant thoughts, I found myself wanting to reassure her somehow.

"I don't want to hurt anyone either." I said, aiming for camaraderie but feeling like I fell awkwardly short. "Everyone tells me I have to ' _be in control'_ like that's just something I forgot to do one day. They don't get what it's like to just- just fade in and out, and have everything get screwed up around you. It- I don't know. It sucks."

"Definitely sucks." She echoed me.

We lapsed into silence again and I found myself wrestling with my thoughts: struggling to come up with something more meaningful to say. My internal contemplation turned into bitter frustration as I found myself figuratively pushing up against the mental fog that seemed to constantly linger at the corners of my mind. It was a self defeating cycle as the frustration led to stress and the stress seemed to make the inhibiting curtain close in further around me.

It was just as I felt the first pricks of frustrated tears threatening to spill from the corners of my eyes that Liz spoke up again.

"Hey, so no offense or anything, 'cause it looks _really_ cool, but is that supposed to be happening, or-?" I looked up to find her pointing finger and curious gaze fixed on the floor beneath me. I glanced down and gasped in surprise.

Around me, the floor was starting to distort. Long pointed ovals, like the petals of some giant flower, were peeling themselves out of the smooth surface of the tiled floor. They curled up around me at a leisurely pace, slowly bending up and inward as though they were trying to form some sort of cocoon around me.

Images of being caught, trapped helplessly inside some massive man-eating flower flashed through my mind and I panicked.

With a desperate fervor, I frantically tried to push myself out of the wheelchair so that I could get away. Unfortunately, I forgot about the straps meant to keep me from falling out when I entered a fugue and only succeeded in violently jostling my seat. As my breath sped up into panicked gasps, I felt my fingers and toes starting to go numb as my fine motor control began to ebb away.

My eyes snapped over to Liz as a plea for help rose to my lips, only to be preempted by the sight of her easily stepping over the growing petals around me. Her left hand closed around the armrest of the wheelchair as her right disappeared behind me.

"Upsie-daisy!" She announced, effortlessly hoisting me chair and all into the air over her head. A surprised squeal escaped my lips and my hands clamped down weakly on the armrests, grip strength already impaired by my slipping coordination. She turned and took two quick steps out of the area of the petals before gently setting me back on the ground.

"I'll take that as a no." She drawled, pushing me towards the door and out into the hall. Once there, she brought me to a stop and stepped around to my side, a hand on her hip as she looked up and down the hall. "Man, where are all the nurses? I get being understaffed but they **really** should be a bit more regular about things." She knelt down next to me to be at eye level and her eyebrows knit together in concern. "Hey, you alright? What do they usually do when- uh, when _this_ happens?" She gestured vaguely over my shoulder as I leaned heavily into one of my hands, closing my eyes as I struggled to hold back the changes.

"They m-m-move me." I stuttered out, gritting my teeth as my tongue seemed to grow thick and heavy in my mouth. "Ta-e a w-walk." I heard Liz stand back up and my chair shifted as she got back behind me and started wheeling me down the hall.

"Walks I can do. Let's go for a walk."

As we pulled out of the range of the area affected by my power, a brief wave of vertigo thrummed through me and I groaned, whimpering pitifully to myself as I mentally cursed my lot in life.

" **So!** " Liz broke out in a tone of forced cheer, like a parent grasping for an idea to distract a child about to break down crying in public. "Where do you usually go for your walks? Just, around the halls?" Not trusting my voice, I replied with a shaky little nod. "Well I can do one better then! Let's take a stroll outside around the building. They've actually got some nice landscaping here, like some sort of fancy-pancy gardener at work or somethin." My eyes snapped open and I blinked in surprise.

"Ou-side? B-but-"

"Yeah, no worries!" She cut me off. "I go all the time. It gets pretty stuffy in here, ya know? They've got a big fence-wall-thing around the place anyway, so as long as we don't leave the grounds it'll be fine."

Somehow I didn't think it could be quite that simple, but as I struggled to put my doubts together into a sentence I eventually just gave up, resigning myself to whatever may happen.

A short walk and a turn or two later, we came to the security gate that separated our ward of the asylum from the others. It was made of painted metal beams and thick panes of something that looked like glass. There were two identical layers to it: parallel gates with an empty space of about ten feet between them. The wall to the left was the front of the gatehouse: a little command room of sorts separated from the rest of the hallway by more panes of the thick glass so that the two men inside could see who was going through. Their heads snapped up as we approached and Liz gave them a jaunty little wave.

"Hey guys. Taylor was having a little power trouble so we're gonna take a quick walk out on the grounds to settle things down. Can you get the gate please?" One of the men reached out in front of himself, likely to activate the intercom so that he could speak to us, since it crackled to life immediately afterward.

"You know I can't do that Liz." He announced in a placating tone. "It goes against-" Liz pulled the back of my wheelchair up to the wall so that I was facing the booth and stepped around me, reaching out for the section of the gate that opens.

"No worries, I'll get it myself." She announced with a put-upon attitude. As she passed by, she turned to give a little wink that only I could see. The reaction was immediate, the guard that had been speaking to us jumping to his feet to bang his hand on the glass.

"Wait, Liz! Wait! **Wait!** " She paused, her hand inches from the glass, and partially turned to fix the guard with an expectant look. For a few moments he visibly floundered, trying to think of something to say. "Just- You know you're not supposed to go out without someone accompanying you. Especially not with another patient. Give me just a second and I'll page one of the doctors."

With a shrug she stepped away from the glass, coming up beside me to lean against the wall. Temporarily relieved, the guard flopped back down into his seat and pulled out a phone handset from somewhere and started speaking into it. Liz glanced down at me and flashed me a conspiratorial smile. I got the feeling that this was not a new occurrence.

A few minutes passed, during which I just focused on keeping myself centered and tried to keep my power from spreading. I couldn't stop it completely but I could at least slow the expansion so long as my mind didn't drift too far. Eventually, the swift clack of heeled shoes on the tiled floor announced Dr. Yamada's arrival. She bustled around the corner looking frazzled, coming from somewhere inside the same ward as us. She was in the process of stuffing a thick folder into her handbag when she laid eyes on us waiting by the gate. Her brow knit together as she gave me a scrutinizing look before turning to address Liz.

"Liz, you can't keep doing this!" She announced in a chastising tone that sounded more familiar than would be normal for your average doctor-patient relationship. Liz sighed, rolling her eyes as she stepped around me.

"It's not a big deal doc. Taylor was having some power trouble and said she usually went for a walk when that happened. Surprise surprise, none of the nurses were around so I decided to take her myself." Dr. Yamada slowed to a stop, a thoughtful frown on her face as she brushed a few stray locks of hair behind her ear.

"Not this again." She said with a sigh glancing at her watch. "Someone's supposed to come around every thirty minutes to check. We brought Taylor to the common room just over an hour and a half ago..." She trailed off, briefly thinking something over before her eyes snapped up to fix Liz with a scrutinizing look. "Usually it takes a few hours before visible distortions start to appear unless Taylor becomes distressed. What-"

"Whoa, wait." Liz interrupted. "I didn't do anything. We were just watchin T.V. and chattin when it started, honest."

Dr. Yamada briefly rubbed her forehead before stepping up to kneel down in front of me. She pulled out a pen light and briefly shone it in both of my eyes before holding up two fingers on each hand.

"Squeeze my fingers as hard as you can." Shakily, I reached out and did so. She gave me a reassuring smile as she went about a few more checks. "How do you feel Taylor? On a scale of one to ten, one being focused and clear, ten being completely out of it, how does this episode rate?" I blinked, trying to think back over the other times things had gotten bad to give her as accurate an assessment as I could.

"Th-three or four." I managed to get out relatively clearly.

"Not as bad as this morning then. That's good, improvement is always good." She stood up, shooting Liz another glance before briefly massaging the bridge of her nose. "Okay, let's go for a walk outside." She said, unclipping her ID from her waist and holding it up for the man behind the window to see before sliding it into a slot next to the gate. The man gave her a nod of confirmation and reached forward out of sight. There was a loud buzz before the gate started to slide open. Liz stepped behind me again and wheeled my chair into position to pass through as Dr. Yamada retrieved her ID. She turned to give Liz a chastising look.

"You need to be more mindful of your circumstances Liz. You _chose_ to come here so that we could help you. You can't keep running off every time you get stir-crazy." Liz scoffed in reply.

"Running off? I never even leave the grounds! How is that running off?" When the gate finished opening, we stepped into the interceding area and waited again. The first one needed to close completely for the second to be able to open.

"The staff can't help keep an eye on you if you keep disappearing on them. What would happen if you reached one of the checkpoints and there was a new guard who wouldn't let you through? What if they tried to subdue you?"

"Oh, what are they gonna do?" Liz asked in a patronizing tone. "Call that guy that can stop me: Michael McDoesn't-Exist?" Dr. Yamada crossed her arms and gave Liz the kind of look mothers save for when their kids have just done or said something _really_ stupid. Liz winced and looked away. "Er, bad joke. Sorry. But, it gets so stuffy in here you know? There's nothing to do but watch T.V. and count the dots on the ceiling. When are you gonna give me my magic formula to just make all the problems disappear?" Dr. Yamada sighed and her expression softened into one of sympathy.

"It's rarely that simple." Liz huffed and as the second gate finished opening, grabbed onto my wheelchair again to ferry me on down the hall. Dr. Yamada clipped her badge onto her lapel so that it was in plain sight and kept pace just ahead of us. After a moment of silence she turned to glance at Liz. "You know you're allowed to have a laptop. Why don't you ask your benefactors in New York for one?" Liz made a mock gagging sound and Dr. Yamada's face cracked into a smile.

"Whenever I ask for anythin they always try to weedle more stuff into my contract. Also, Chubby'll give me another sales pitch on their _'state of the art facilities and professional specialists_. Can't they just leave me alone 'til I'm ready?"

"You know, **I'm** one of those specialists. If it would make you more comfortable-"

" **Don't.** " Liz snapped. "I told you, it's too soon. I still don't trust myself, so just- just don't."

Dr. Yamada gave her a little sympathetic smile before turning back around. We made the rest of the trip in silence.


End file.
